Cisco, Intel And Others Join To Form WiMAX Patent Pool

Six WiMAX firms have teamed together to create the Open Patent Alliance(OPA), to accelerate the widespread adoption and deployment of WiMAX technology and products. The companies involved in the formation of the OPA include Cisco Systems, Intel Corp., Alcatel-Lucent, Clearwire, Sprint and Samsung.

The OPA will advance a competitive and open intellectual property rights model, thus stimulating a larger WiMAX industry that supports innovation through broader choice and lower equipment and service costs for WiMAX technology, devices and applications globally. This group’s goal is to jointly license WiMAX patents so they can keep royalty rates in check and make the technology more affordable.

However, several well-known WiMax providers are not on the list, including Motorola Inc., which is providing equipment for a field test of mobile WiMax services in Chicago as part of the Xohm initiative spearheaded by Sprint. Other companies which are interested in WiMAX, which are not yet a part of this pool are Motorola, Qualcomm and Nokia. Other companies which are not a part of OPA yet, could join anytime later, announced in the press release.

As of now, it looks like a good idea but we will have to wait and see, whether this model really works out well as there are some complications that could arise as the group progresses.